How to Earn 8.5% Buying Visa Gift Cards Online
I like to take advantage of buying gift cards for cash back when it’s convenient, but I rarely run out to a store just to purchase gift cards. However, when a store makes them available online, I like to seize the opportunity to make money!
Chasing the Points discovered that Staples recently started selling their $200 Visa gift cards online! Here’s how I’m putting together my orders to buy them and earn 8.5% cash back!
How to Buy Visa Gift Cards Online
- Login to your Swagbucks account to earn 6% – 6.6% cash back at Staples.
- Use Your American Express Simply Cash card for 5% cash back at office supply stores.
- Search for the Visa $200 Gift Cards to purchase.
- Pay $6.95 activation fee per card.
Here’s the card you are looking for:
Other Options and Twists
Cash Back Accounts. If you don’t have a Swagbucks account, you can also use your Upromise account which currently pays 5% cash back.
Credit Cards. I figured many of you have the American Express Simply Cash card from the bonus they offered this spring. If you don’t have this card, you can also use a Chase Ink card which also pays 5% at office supply stores.
Visa cards. If you use an Ink card with a Visa logo, you can also add an additional 1% cash back from the Visa Savings Edge program.
Amazon gift cards. If you redeem your Swagbucks for Amazon gift cards, the cash back rate is 6.6%, not 6%.
Swagbucks Bonus. If you don’t have a Swagbucks account, you can use this SwagBucks Cashback Sign Up Bonus which apparently still works.
Do The Math
Here’s how the math broke down for me. I purchased 10 x $200 gift cards worth $2000 in an order:
- Activation Fees of $6.95 x 10 = $69.50
- Swagbucks Cashback for Amazon gift cards: $136.59
- American Express Cashback: $103.47
Total Profit:
- Rewards: $136.59 + $103.47 = $240.06
- Fees: $69.50
- Profit: $170.56
Total Cash Back on Gift Cards $170.56 / 2,000 = 8.5%
Spending Your Gift Cards
I just finished paying our taxes with gift cards, so this was the perfect time to replenish my stack of gift cards. At 8.5% cash back, it’s currently a better deal than any of the current quarterly rotating cash rewards.
While we can probably also add these gift cards to our Serve or Bluebird accounts, I’m also looking forward to testing out a new bill payment service: Evolve. Let me know if you have used Evolve for cashing out gift cards, I’d love to hear how well it worked! Stay tuned for more on that experiment! Update: How to Cash Out Gift Cards Online Using Evolve Money to Pay Your Bills!
More on Credit Card Cash Back
